tumbledquartz

YES. And she just says, "You just have to worry about taking responsibility for your problems and let him worry about his problems. Blaming people doesn't solve problems." When I told her that it was ironic that she wrote her Master's Thesis on Wives of Alcoholics, given that she never showed any compassion for me when I was in that situation, her reply was: "You weren't the wife of an active alcoholic for most of the marriage." I didn't realize you had to suffer through something for a certain percentage of your marriage before you were entitled to support or sympathy.

Our plumbing is still a mess. I have my two oldest kids in counseling with a great therapist who specializes in family counseling. My oldest is really struggling because the last time I pushed her to stay at her dad's house because I was trying to comply with the custody agreement, she found out he was sleeping with his new girlfriend and he told her not to tell me about it. She was so upset she texted me at 11 p.m. and said she was going to start walking home if I didn't come get her. She wouldn't tell me why, though, because she didn't want to betray her dad. Luckily, I was able to guess what was wrong because I already suspected he had a girlfriend. Once I guessed it, she opened up to me and told me what had happened. My son is really struggling because he has always craved his dad's attention and he wants to live at his dad's house. He blames me for pushing his dad away because his dad told him it was my fault he'd started drinking again. I feel like my pipes aren't even in the walls anymore. And then I have my mother-in-law, who ironically wrote her master's thesis on wives of alcoholics, telling me that I am equally responsible for our problems and showing me no compassion and telling us that we should share custody because we are equally good parents, we just have different strengths and weaknesses. She's driving me completely batty. I've blocked her emails from my inbox because I get so frustrated reading them.

I'm pretty sure funds get used to pay LDS Family Services for counseling on a regular basis. I've actually talked to bishops about this in the past. I have always had insurance that covered mental health issues with a reasonable copay, so I haven't needed to use it, but it was an option. I personally think there are some problems in marriage and family life that can be fixed with some good old spiritual advice. The bishop is entitled to revelation on your behalf. Sometimes the Sunday School answers are the best way to fix a marriage that's gone slightly off track. With the plumbing analogy, I have unclogged many drains, and I would feel confident helping anyone unclog their drains, too. But if I got in there and found that their drain was so different than mine that I couldn't make heads or tails of it, or so clogged that nothing I did could fix it, I would tell them to get someone who knew more than me. I know bishops aren't perfect, but I think this is what they do. You come to them and tell them your drain is clogged and they try to help you get it unclogged. If they find that it is beyond their ability to repair, they offer to refer you to a plumber.

How about if I tell my bishop some of my troubles but don't expect him to give me legal advice? I've actually talked to him a little bit and he referred me to a nice family lawyer in our ward who said he was willing to give me some free advice. This was before the whole thing started blowing up, though. My ex (I've decided to start calling him my ex even though it isn't official) told me today that I can't tell him not to leave the kids home alone past midnight--that I can't give him a "curfew." He also admitted that he has started dating and that the kids have met his girlfriend, and that it's none of my business. He's acting like a sullen teenager, if you ask me.

Thanks for your advice and thoughts. It's funny, but the speaker in church today was talking about the handcart pioneers becoming acquainted with God in their extremities, and he asked us if we really wanted life to be easy? Felt like he was directly answering my question in the title of this thread. After I posted my rant last night, I noticed my son was online pretty late, so I chatted with him and found out the kids were home alone while their dad was out at a friend's house. I talked to them for a while, and when it was after midnight and he still wasn't home, i just went and picked them up. Temporary agreement or not, I'm not going to leave them at his house while he's out getting stoned. I know I should get a lawyer. I need to look into free legal services, because I have no real money to speak of right now. I am documenting everything, though. Maybe it won't take much to get him to settle out of court when he's presented with the evidence and he sees that I won't let him just walk over me. One can always hope, right? :/

I don't post very often, but I really feel the need to vent right now. For almost a year now, my husband and I have been separated. In mid-March, he was saying that he wanted to get his act cleaned up and get me back; that he was so sad without me and the kids. Then suddenly in April, he says, "never mind; let's just have an amicable divorce without lawyers." (Turns out he has a new girlfriend now; probably the reason he changed his mind so abruptly, though he won't confirm or deny it.) For this past year, I could count on one hand the number of times our kids have slept at his house despite my asking him to take them once a week. But now that it's time to work out the details of the divorce and we're talking about child support and alimony, he suddenly just has to have the little darlings at least 3 days a week. This is a guy who is smoking pot, getting drunk on a daily basis, and left our kids alone for 36 hours straight a couple months ago while leading me to believe he had them with him. Luckily, they were OK, but it confirmed to me that they are better off with me. I decided at that point that I would let him have the regular every-other-week visits, but that he didn't want anything more, and I wasn't sure they were safe with him anyway. We went into divorce mediation last week. I went in saying I wanted sole custody and he went in saying he wanted them 3 days a week, and after 5 hours of haggling back and forth, we finally "compromised" on him having them 3 days a week for a trial period. He said that his mom told him he should fight for full custody, so I should be happy he is settling for just 3 days a week. I've never claimed to be without flaws, and I've made some mistakes this past year while I've been a single mom, but it baffles me that my MIL could possibly think her grandkids are in better hands with him than they are with me. I tried to contact her, but she's too close-minded to listen to anything I have to say. I think she just doesn't want to feel like a failure as a parent, so she's holding onto hope that her son isn't as bad as he really is. There are two possible positive outcomes to this whole trial custody arrangement that I can see happening. First, he will realize that having the kids 3 days a week, especially once school starts and he has to get them places, is harder than he wants to deal with, and he'll back off and let me have full custody. OR, he will actually step up and be responsible while he has them and I can get a break from the single mom thing. I'm trying not to think of the third option, where my kids are hurt emotionally or physically, or where he can't handle it but he pretends that he can long enough to make it permanent. Anyway you look at it, divorce sucks, and it's not the "easy" way out, in case you were wondering if there was a moral to this story.

So I was talking to my husband tonight about our current visitation schedule with the kids and how it's not really working, and the conversation turned to where the heck all this is leading. We've been separated for 6 months, just basically in limbo. The big question on both of our minds is whether we should work to reconcile or start the divorce process. My husband's take on it is that he thinks I have all the benefits of our current situation and he has all the negatives. His reasoning for this is that he isn't getting sex and I am still getting his money. He basically started pressuring me to have sex with him again, saying that he can't hold out forever and eventually if I won't go back to doing it, he wants to find someone else, hence the "divorce" discussion. I tried to tell him that I don't have all the "benefits" just because I'm okay financially. That there are things I miss out on too, like companionship, etc. I also miss having sex, but that doesn't count for him because he thinks if I want it, I can just come get it anytime. He also thinks me having the kids most of the time is a benefit in my favor, which is true in some ways, but it's not always easy being a single mom either! So, bottom line--and why I'm here asking for advice--is that he said that he knows what he wants (He wants sex, which is pretty straightforward), and he wants me to tell him what I want. And he clarified that the thing I want can't be for him to stop drinking because if I ask that, then he gets to ask me to lose weight. I'm not really sure how that works out in his mind, other than the fact that he said that giving up drinking would be even harder than losing weight, so therefore I should be prepared to lose weight if I ask him to quit drinking. Here's my problem. I don't know what to ask for my "one thing" that I want from him. The thing that I want is for him to be a completely different person. I mean, he's drinking, smoking, swearing, he's inactive in the church, he's cheated on me and told me it's my fault because I'm not skinny enough. But he's looking for me to tell him one thing I want him to do. As in: if you do X, then I'll have sex with you again. On the one hand, he has a point. He knows exactly what he wants me to do, and how can he do what I want if I can't even tell him what that is??? But on the other hand, I am having a really hard time boiling down what I want into something to DO. I don't want him to DO something, I want him to BE something. But maybe that's too unrealistic to tell him what I want him to BE. I want him to WANT me, not because I'm the only legal outlet for his sexual desires but because he loves ME. He seemed like he was somewhat on the right track recently when he told me he wanted me back. He said, "I don't even care that you're fat." (Just what every woman wants to hear.) But his comments today about not wanting to hear me ask him to quit drinking unless I'm willing to lose weight are evidence that that wasn't true. I recently prayed about whether to try and reconcile with him or whether to seek a divorce, and the answer I got was to "wait on the Lord" so I don't know what to do. I'm thinking of asking my bishop for a blessing after church tomorrow, but I wanted to ask all of you for your thoughts too to help me sort things out. Hit me with your best thoughts.

I'm glad to hear more people addressing this subject lately. Women can become addicted to pornography just like men - and not just the kind in literature, which is what we usually hear about when "women" and "pornography" are in the same sentence. Several years ago when I was being co-dependent and checking up on my husband's internet history, I got addicted to it myself, and it took me a while to get disentangled from it. It was probably the hardest thing I ever had to tell a bishop. He was kind, but it was so embarrassing, partly because I felt like I must be an especially flawed and bad person since I was the only woman I had ever heard of with that problem. The New Era recently published an article about this topic that I thought was very well done. https://www.lds.org/youth/article/my-journey-to-overcome-pornography?lang=eng

You need to find someone to talk to. Is there a school counselor or a young women leader you trust? Don't be afraid to go to your bishop. In my experience, they are very understanding and caring and non-judgmental. They are there to help. The threats of suicide if you don't have sex do sound like emotional abuse. This person is not a good influence in your life and you need to make sure you aren't alone with him again. Best of luck. <3

I wasn't trying to say that they were exactly the same thing, I was just sharing my experience and how I felt because it might be useful. I think some of the same feelings might be present in both situations because in confessing her sins, she is confessing his, too, to some extent. I mean, there's no way to tell your bishop you had sex with your husband before you were married but that he didn't have sex with you. Anyway, I agree with you that telling the bishop and starting her own repentance process is important, since I came to the conclusion even in my situation to talk to the bishop, in case I didn't make that clear in my earlier post.

I totally understand how tricky this can be. You want to get help for yourself, but in confessing your sins, you're confessing his sins, too. My first and probably best advice is to pray about how to proceed. When I found out my husband had started drinking, he didn't want me to tell the bishop, and I tried that for a while, because I figured it was his problem and it wasn't my place to go and tattle on him. But it came to a point where I felt strongly that I needed the help and guidance of my bishop to get through the problems I was having, and I needed to be honest with him about what those problems were if I wanted to get good help and guidance. My husband also didn't want me to tell our kids about his drinking, and I tried to go along with that for a while, but I hated lying to them when they would ask questions like, "Why can't Dad just drive me to scouts?" if I couldn't do it and I would be calling the neighbors to see if someone could help us, etc. I finally decided that being open and honest with our kids was more important to our family's health and well being than keeping his wish for me to keep it a secret. I have felt so much better since I made that decision. Of course, to put it all in perspective, my husband and I are separated now. But I don't think that's because I was honest. Things weren't looking good for us before I told people the truth, either. Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

Just to clarify, I actually don't pray about every little thing. I think God expects us to think and act for ourselves, and He isn't going to command us in all things. But I have been praying about what diet / way of eating was right for me and my kids because we have had some health issues and I feel like I have been jerked around from low-fat to low-carb to paleo to body-for-life and everything in between, and I felt a lot like Joseph Smith praying about which church to join - I just wanted to know which was the right eating plan for me and to block out all the voices coming at me from all sides, because believe me, when you start studying nutrition, you find that there are a lot of people who have as much faith in their way of eating as a religious revivalist.

Thanks for your reply. While it is possible that it was all the power of suggestion, I still feel that it was a prompting. I am trying very hard to listen to the spirit right now and I could explain to you all the reasons why I am 99% sure this was that, but those details are beside the point and somewhat personal, so I chose to just say it was a prompting. One of the things I have been trying very hard to do is follow the spirit even when it isn't what I would choose to do for myself, and one of my biggest frustrations in my recent argument with my MIL is that I was just trying to follow the spirit's direction to eat healthier. I feel like I would be a hypocrite if I didn't do the same now that the prompting isn't what I want to hear.

You're both right. I was looking for advice on both things. Any and all advice is welcome. Thanks for all the helpful comments so far. :) Edited to add: this post was directed to anatess and eowyn. A bunch more replies popped up while I was typing.)

No, she doesn't live with us; in fact, she lives out of state. She just brings it up whenever we talk, it was her main talking point when she visited a month ago, and she sends articles about how wheat is killing us, etc. via email periodically.

This could be a really, really, really long post. I'll try not to let that happen. Bullet points might help. * I feel like my MIL is a pushy know-it-all who is constantly trying to tell me what I should be doing and judging me. (She claims she is just trying to help and offering solutions to problems and that she doesn't tell me what I have to do, just that I will suffer the consequences if I don't. (She also doesn't see the irony in this.)) Especially now that my husband and I are having serious issues/separation, and I'm having problems with my kids to different degrees, she wants desperately to help us fix everything. By her own definition, she is a problem solver, and by trade, she is a counselor. * In the past year or so, she has decided that all of our problems stem from one source: gluten. According to her research, which is legion, all of the following and more are pretty much a direct result of eating gluten: alcoholism, bed wetting, internet addiction, tiredness, bipolar, ADHD, Autism/Asperger Syndrome, Schizophrenia, susceptibility to peer pressure, poor performance in school, and depression. * She has tried to convince me several times to stop eating gluten and get my kids to stop eating it. * I had actually already been looking into it because I know several people with celiac disease and other gluten issues. I was tested for sensitivity and the tests came back negative. We did a short gluten-free trial and didn't notice any differences. * I prayed about it several months ago and felt impressed that eliminating gluten isn't what I should be focusing on right now; that I should just be trying to get more fruits and vegetables in our diets and making more homemade meals instead of relying on the freezer aisle. Even this has been difficult because my life is so stressful right now, as I have four kids I'm raising by myself, I don't know what's happening with my marriage, and I'm in school full-time to top off the crazy scale. But I've felt better when I've tried to eat healthier and plan healthy meals for the family. * I told my MIL all of this, and she replied that that isn't good enough, that I'm neglecting serious nutritional problems in my children, and that she can't believe I won't just do a simple elimination test to see if it helps our symptoms (though she admits that it can take up to 3 months to see the full benefits and that there are many hidden sources of gluten that will need to be rooted out.) * We got into a huge argument about it this past week because I feel like she is condescending and pushy and she feels like she is just a concerned grandmother who wants desperately for her grand kids to benefit from her research. I basically told her that I wasn't going to listen to her opinions on the topic anymore because I feel like she is so focused on being right instead of seeing both sides of an issue and she isn't being supportive of me and my efforts. * Yesterday, I felt bad that I had been confrontational with her and decided to try praying for her instead. As I was praying, I got a very strong and obvious impression that now it's time for me to focus on eliminating gluten. * I feel so conflicted by this guidance. It's NOT what I wanted to hear right now. Eliminating gluten is going to be extremely difficult, it's going to mean I have to pack lunches for my kids every day--and they can't be PB&J sandwiches, to boot--and monitor everything they eat, and nearly all of my fallback meals and foods will have to be eliminated or modified, I'm going to have to deal with picky eaters all the way around, including myself and if we want to eat bread, I'm going to have to make homemade gluten-free bread because the very best kind we could find in the store when we tried going gluten-free before is disgusting. * The worst part is that after having this huge blowup with my MIL about not wanting her to tell me to eliminate gluten, I'm going to have to turn around and do it. My first thought was that God must really have a sense of humor for this to be His timing. I mean, really, couldn't He have told me this last week? My next thought is that He must have wanted me to have to eat a big ol' piece of Humble Pie the next time I talk to her and have to admit that she was right. I just hope Humble Pie is gluten-free. * I honestly feel so overwhelmed and stressed out by this whole thing that I couldn't fall asleep until after 5 o'clock this morning. Any advice on tricks for gluten-free diets, packing lunches, or dealing with MILs would be welcome. * I also know that in order to get accurate readings on tests for celiac disease, you have to be eating gluten. Does anyone know about testing on kids? I feel like I should get them tested before we start eating differently, one of them in particular, as he has had some gastrointestinal issues over the years.

Your maiden name is still your name, even if you have now legally tacked another last name on the end of it. In fact, your maiden name is your permanent identity; as much as we would hope your married name will also be your name forever, you can't totally discount the possibility of divorce or death resulting in an eventual remarriage. But no matter what, your maiden name won't change. The only "need" I can see for using scriptures with your married name on them is that if you lose them, your ward members won't recognize the name to get them back to you. So write your current name and phone number on the inside flap in pencil. :) Otherwise, there's nothing I can see that would be a problem with having your maiden name engraved on your scriptures. When I use my set that has my maiden name on it, it reminds me of who I am and where I came from. It's not all that I am now, so it isn't my full name anymore, but it isn't wrong--Unlike the scriptures I have with my married name on them. I may end up divorced someday and those ones will have a name on them that is no longer who I am. Hopfully that made sense. Sorry if it was more than you bargained for with this question.

I don't really know why I'm posting here. I just feel so lonely right now and I don't have anyone to talk to about it. My husband and I have been separated for a few months, and he says he wants to get back together, but he doesn't seem to be trying very hard to change at the same time. For those who don't remember me from when I posted a year ago or so, he was threatening to leave me if I didn't lose weight and basically become a "trophy" wife. He had quit going to church and started doing drugs and drinking. In the last few months, he has also started smoking and drinking coffee. It seems like he is getting deeper into the lifestyle that I don't really want my kids around instead of trying to break out of it. When I talked to him today, he said that he doesn't care that I'm fat (yes, he has a delicate way of choosing his words) and that he wants me back because I'm the mother of his kids and he misses me and he misses seeing them every day. Part of me wants to just take him back because I miss having a man around and I don't really feel all that worthy or special at the moment. The reason I married him in the first place despite a prompting not to is because I didn't think anyone else would want me, and now I'm back to those same feelings again. Maybe being single is better than being married to the wrong person in theory, but I don't do single very well. I need to learn how to be okay by myself without worrying about whether I will ever find someone else, but like I said, all of that is much easier in theory than in practice. Also, I've gotten my hopes up before that he would change and was crushed to realize later that he was just trying to manipulate me. And the real icing on the cake is that he cheated on me and blamed me for it because I wasn't trying hard enough to lose weight for him. He has never seemed really repentant about that, and I'm having a hard time believing that it wouldn't happen again. Maybe the hardest part is that we are still living in a state of limbo, where we are married but not living together or fully committed to the marriage. I can't even /think/ about dating or wondering if someone else would want to marry me because I'm still married. But I don't have the support, emotionally or otherwise, that comes from being married, either. The spirit was very clear, though, that I wasn't supposed to divorce him, when I prayed about it a year ago, so I don't know what to do other than wait.

Duck Season!

This quote really disturbs me. You sound like a controlling person who hasn't learned to trust God and His promises. Everyone who dies without their calling and election made sure "obviously" didn't live a clean life? Sorry, I just can't accept that. I don't think you have to have your C&E to receive salvation in the highest kingdom. I think it is probably more of a burden than a blessing in some ways. And getting to that point still doesn't guarantee you salvation. It just guarantees that you will either be exalted or end up in outer darkness if you fall away afterward.

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I remember being taught at one time that what is written in D&C 76 is only a hundredth part of everything they saw and learned in that vision, so it's hard to know what else they saw exactly. I see what you're saying, though. I don't know if Christ personally appeared to them there, but personally, I wouldn't care about the distinction if I got to that point.

What about D&C 76? Philo Dibble was an eyewitness when that vision was received, and he said, "Joseph would, at intervals, say: 'What do I see?' as one might say while looking out the window and beholding what all in the room could not see. then he would relate what he had seen or what he was looking at. Then Sidney replied, "I see the same.' Presently Sidney would say 'what do I see?' and would repeat what he had seen or was seeing, and Joseph would reply, "I see the same.'" So Joseph and Sidney were both awake and conscious when they received the vision in D&C 76, in which they say, "We saw him, even on the right hand of God."

I did a search and came up with this quote, which seems to be saying what I said above, if not exactly at least in spirit. It looks like it is a quote from Bruce R. McConkie. I got it from the following website, which has a lot of great info. for anyone wanting to read more about the topic: Calling & Election Made Sure

911 (wait, is that a word?) LOL